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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24667324">Learning to Be, as Seen From the Peanut Gallery</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Learning to Be [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Female Harry Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:22:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,617</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24667324</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Outtakes from various scenes in Learning to Be, from alternative perspectives.</p><p>First up: Petunia Dursley</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Learning to Be [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771426</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Petunia Evans Dursley</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey guys! If you haven't read She Walks Alone, then this probably won't make a whole lot of sense to you. The first chapter could be read alone but after that, it'll veer farther off of canon and probably won't make much sense. I would definitely recommend reading the first in this series before moving on here. Thanks!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>All Petunia Evans had ever wanted was to have the perfect life. Her adolescence had been spent in spite, hidden in her little sister’s shadow. Her perfect, beautiful, magical little sister who could do absolutely no wrong. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was… odd. The way people flocked to her sister. The children at the playground, their teachers at school, even that strange little boy from the dark neighborhood around the bend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Petunia Evans knew about magic, oh yes. Unnatural, it was, against the natural order of the world. Freaks, the lot of them, Petunia had spat many a time towards her sister and her magical friends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Petunia left. Her parents had died the year previous and she didn’t have time to find out whether or not Lily would come to her senses about that Potter boy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Petunia left, and along the way she found love. It came and went, just as it does for all people, and eventually she found a man who she thought she could be happy with. Who she could build a life with. Less than a year of dating and they were set to be married. Five months of engagement and nearly eleven months of marriage before her precious son came along.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Petunia Dursley lay in her hospital bed, her son in her arms and her husband snoring in the chair beside her, and she was happy. She had a nice home, a nice family, and everything was perfect.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything stayed perfect for nearly two years. Until one morning she opened the door to pick up the newspaper and found a baby and a letter dropped on her doorstep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first, she’s horrified. How could someone leave an infant outside in the cold overnight? Why would anyone do that? And why here? Why not to an orphanage or to law enforcement?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She picked the baby up, and that was her first mistake. Reading the letter was the second.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time Vernon rose from bed, the girl had woken and Petunia had read through the letter twice and was staring at her niece. She hadn’t even known Lily was pregnant. Then again, she had never told her sister about Dudley, had barely even wanted to send an invite for her wedding. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The baby looks like her, in the general way that any infant looks like their parents. Her square jawline, her high cheekbones, her piercing green eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Petunia hates her as soon as she realizes whose baby this is. She’s reading the letter a third time when Vernon makes his way into the kitchen. He stumbles to a stop when he sees the child on the table.</span>
</p><p>"It's Lily's," she says, continuing: "Her and her husband are dead. Her husband's family is dead. The only ones who can take her in are us."</p><p>"There's no one else?" Vernon asks, approaching the table.</p><p>She holds out the letter for him to take. "We're the only ones," she repeats. Vernon reads the letter, turning slightly red in the face as he does so.</p><p>"Is he threatening us?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"She's one of those freaks, Pet. We can't take her in, she doesn't belong here."</p><p>"The headmaster says there's protection around our house, set up by Lily. Says that we'd be dead without it. That since Lily is dead, the girl is the only one who can keep them up. All she has to do is live here. I don't want to take her in any more than you do, but we have to. I have you, and Dudley, and I have my perfect life." She turns suddenly, clutching at Vernon's arm. "I don't want to die, Vernon. What if they attack us? We can't stop them. They're freaks, all of them, but we can't touch them."</p><p>Vernon pats the hand on his arm. "We'll take her in. She just has to live here. We'll feed her and clothe her but she'll have to work for her stay as she gets older."</p><p>"Chores," Petunia agrees. "Wear her out so she can't use any of her freakishness around us."</p><p>Vernon nods. "She won't sleep in the same room as Dudley, I won't have it! We'll put her in the guest room for now, and figure out what to do with her later."</p><p>So they do. They put little Hariel upstairs in the guest bedroom, on the bed with no safety rails, that she could fall off of and hurt herself if she rolls. They leave her there for most of the day, only going into the room when she starts crying.</p><p>Petunia feeds her the bare minimum of Dudley's baby formula, leaves her in her soiled diaper, never touching her for longer than she has to.</p><p>And this is how Hariel Potter, Girl-Who-Lived, savior of the wizarding world grows up. She's shoved into the boot cupboard as soon as she can walk without stumbling, expected to do chores not long after that. She learns early on that tears won't get her anything</p><p> </p><p>(as they shouldn't)</p><p> </p><p>and that just doing what she's told is much easier for her. </p><p>Petunia knows that what she and her husband are doing to the girl isn't what others would do in their same situation. But Petunia knows magic, knows its freakishness intimately. If the girl is always busy, she won't have time to practice being a freak, levitating flowers or singing to birds the way her sister had at her age.</p><p>It's somewhat of a surprise, the first time Vernon hits the girl. All she can think of in the moment is that she deserves it, that she was being a brat, and how dare she spit in the face of their kindness? The first time Vernon hits her, all she can feel is vindictively pleased.</p><p>But later, she wonder's what kind of person that makes her, to be happy that her husband hurt a child. She pushes the thought away; it's far less than freaks like her deserve, anyway.</p><p>After that moment, Vernon continues to hit the girl. Barely out of her toddler stage, and she's covered in bruises and welts constantly. It goes on for years, slowing slightly with the start of primary school. The girl is only allowed to go because it's required by law; Petunia hisses at her that if she does better than Dudley in their classes then she can expect more chores and less food than she already gets.</p><p>Until one day the girl visibly snaps. She's cowering away from Vernon's raised fist when she suddenly looks absolutely enraged.</p><p>Petunia feels as though she is drenched in ice water. The last time she saw that expression, it was on her sister's face, her hair flying and crackling around her, static with magic. She can see Lily in her now, face made of stone, bright eyes practically glowing, thick hair frizzling.</p><p>
  <span>The girl's eyes narrow into a harsh glare, firm with resolve, and suddenly her husband is on fire.</span>
</p><p>Petunia screeches as Vernon hollers, running over with her hand towel to pat down his head. But the fire continues and she hears, over her and Vernon's yelling, a soft, "I won't stop it. I can- but I won't."</p><p>She turns to her niece, turning pleading eyes on those made of stone. Vernon has fallen to the floor beside her, still on fire, and the smell of burning hair is starting to permeate the air. The two of them beg and plead for her to stop but she just looks down on them with satisfaction.</p><p>And Petunia knows that she will never be able to hate her sister as much as she hates this girl right in front of her. At least Lily had the decency to not <em>set people on fire</em> when they upset her.</p><p>Eventually the flames run out, and it wasn't hot enough to truly damage Vernon's scalp. The majority of his hair is gone, but his skin is mostly intact and the doctors they visit later say the scaring should go away and hair will regrow over it. </p><p>The girl is locked back into the cupboard, where she stays for the rest of the weekend and most of the week, only let out for school. Vernon tries to hit her again, but the girl just looks at him, holds out her hand, holding a small flame. Vernon flinches back from her and Petunia almost hits her herself at the glint of gratification that appears in the girl's eye.</p><p>After that, they leave her alone. The lock her in her cupboard in the evenings, but she starts disappearing right after school, not showing up until after dinner time most nights. Petunia is afraid to ask what she's doing, doesn't truly want to know. Vernon attempts to punish her, but pales and backs away at her, "I wonder if I can make the fire purple instead of red. Would certainly look better on you as you burn." </p><p>Eventually, the girl whittles her way through their defenses, and soon enough, instead of being constantly busy with chores, she gardens and lays in her cupboard or she leaves. Petunia lets her do whatever she wants, because frankly she's afraid of the girl. Afraid of this tiny, barely eight year old girl who has set her husband on fire and ruined her perfect life.</p><p>So the girl disappears for hours at a time, taking nothing and returning with nothing.</p><p>She starts doing well in school, to the bafflement of her teachers, and Vernon's face turns bright purple when they receive their end of term scores and the girl has straight A's  while Dudley has a B minus, C plus average. But they don't say anything to her. The girl is obviously waiting for them to do something, eyeing them warily, body tense and fingers twitching. But they say and do nothing and she goes back to ignoring them the way she has been.</p><p>Suddenly it's Dudley's birthday. Eleven years old, an important milestone in her son's life. The girl retrieves the mail, dropping it in front of Vernon, walks out the back door and disappears all day. Petunia is perfectly fine with this - better to have her god knows where away from the house rather than in it and messing up Dudley's birthday. </p><p>The next morning, the girl is busy flipping eggs and bacon so Petunia gets the mail herself. She's flipping through it (bill, bill, pamphlet, bill) when she freezes. She stares at the thick, creamy parchment with the green ink and she stands there frozen.</p><p>Suddenly it's like she can move again, and she rushes over to Vernon, shoving the letter into his hands. "What do we do with this?" she hisses to him. "We can't give it to her-"</p><p>Vernon takes in the address and the seal on the back and roars, <span>“GIRL!” He stomps over to her, </span><em><span>“What is the meaning of this?”</span></em><span> he demands, shoving the letter in her face.</span></p><p>She looks at it and for a second, so short Petunia could have imagined it, satisfaction blinks through her face, there and gone, traded for surprise and awe. </p><p>Petunia knows that she already knows what's in the letter, but watches as the girl yanks it from her husband's hands and reads it in front of them. She looks over the paper hungrily, scanning the words that Petunia has absolutely no doubt she's already read. Before she can say anything, the girl is demanding, <span>“Is this some sort of joke?"</span></p><p>Vernon steps menacingly in her direction and her eyes snap to his and suddenly he's on fire again. Petunia has a harsh sense of deja vu as she screams and runs over to pat down Vernon's head. It takes a moment, but Vernon stops yelling, and Petunia stops trying to stop the fire when they realize it isn't actually burning him.</p><p>
  <span>“One of you is going to tell me what this means or I’ll set him on fire for real," the girl commands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vernon pushes Petunia’s hands away from his head and he growls, “End this right now and then your cupboard for a week.”</span>
</p><p>The girl just looks at him and suddenly he's screaming again and she's yelling again and she has her hand towel over his head again.</p><p>Eventually the fire stops again, and the girl is in her cupboard again, and they're at the hospital again. Petunia spins a story about her pyromaniac niece setting him on fire to explain the burns once again.</p><p>The next day and there are more letters. They're addressed to the cupboard under the stairs and Petunia is paranoid that there's someone watching the house, so Vernon installs deadbolts on Dudley's second bedroom upstairs and they move the girl there.</p><p>Days pass and more and more letters show up, until one morning there are none.</p><p>"See Pet, I told you they'd give up if we didn't respond. Now we can move-" He's interrupted by a crack in the street and a knock on the door.</p><p>Petunia stiffens, recognizing that sound. She wipes her hands on her towel, peaking out the side window to see which of the freaks is outside.</p><p>It's the same woman who came for Lily just over two decades ago. She barely looks much older than she did then. Petunia knows that answering the door will only result in one thing, but she wants the girl gone and if that means she's learning about her freakishness then so be it. She's tired of living in fear of a child. Tired of watching her husband warily for the next time she sets him on fire.</p><p>If she opens the door, and the girl will be gone most of the year, only here for a few months before she's gone again. Petunia can handle that. She can handle two months out of the year.</p><p>She opens the door.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Professor Minerva McGonagall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Set just after chapter three in She Walks Alone</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Professor Minerva McGonagall knew something wasn’t quite right the instant she stepped into Number 4 Privet Drive. Petunia Dursley, still as long necked and sour looking as she had been a decade ago, calls her students freaks and she instinctively knows that this visit is not going to go how she had imagined.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Over the past ten years, she’s been kept away from this house by Headmaster Dumbledore’s assurances that Hariel was perfectly happy and healthy with her extended family. The lack of photos, or really any sign, of the girl in the family room paints a drastically different portrait for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Petunia returns as Minerva is magicking up some tea. The girl walking before her both is and is not what Minerva is expecting to see. She could be Lily Evans’ twin, apart from James Potter’s dark hair and tanned skin. But she’s small, tiny really. She looks to be all of eight or nine, instead of the eleven years she really is. Neither of her parents were short, but Hariel is just barely over four feet tall, and as thin as a twig.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She freezes in the doorway as her eyes register the floating tea set and that’s another question answered for Minerva.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She invites Hariel to sit for tea with her and Minerva can feel herself tensing more and more as she introduces the girl to their world for what is clearly the first time she can remember. Their conversation reveals a lot about her upbringing and Minerva can feel her blood pressure levels rising.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Petunia didn’t tell her about her magical heritage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Petunia told her </span>
  <em>
    <span>lies</span>
  </em>
  <span> about her parents, discredited them to their daughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Minerva takes Hariel to Diagon Alley and watches as she gapes in awe and shock at everything and anything in sight. She takes the girl to Gringotts and watches the strangely dark expression that flits across her stunned face as she takes in her trust vault. She takes her clothes shopping, watches as the girl buys shirts that won’t fall off her shoulders and shoes that will protect her feet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Minerva takes her out to eat, and watches as Hariel carefully preserves half her meal in her trunk, barely finishing the other half before claiming she’s full.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The longer she spends time in Hariel’s company, the more disturbing conclusions she draws about her home life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But despite all the bad circumstances that seem to make up Hariel’s life, she’s clearly intelligent and powerful. Her upbringing hasn’t managed to dull her any from her infantry, when she’d been the magically strongest child Minerva had ever met.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a dangerous combination that Minerva has seen many times before. It’s a little known fact that magical children from neglectful and abusive homes gravitate towards either what they know best or what they want most. The former being subtlety and care to avoid situations that put them in danger they can’t handle and the latter being the strength to leave their situation for a better home. Most often, these children are sorted into Slytherin and Gryffindor, respectively. Of course, some end up in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, for want of support and stability or lured by the idea of knowledge that will put them in a position higher than their abusers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The point is, Minerva has seen children like her before. But never has she been directly complicit in putting a child in those circumstances.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She leaves the girl in Ollivander’s to buy her wand and resists the urge to head down the street for a glass of wine, or even a few fingers of fire whiskey. She waits at the cafe directly across the alley and tries not to let her guilt overwhelm her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Through the windows, Minerva can see that Hariel is clearly a tricky customer for Ollivander. There’s a large pile of wands on the desk already and more often than not, he takes them from her before she can so much as twitch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She uses the steadily growing length of time to contemplate the past decade and every thought and action she’s made directed towards Hariel Potter. She’ll be the first to admit that she failed the girl. She told the headmaster that the Dursleys were not a proper family for Hariel, but she let him do as he pleased and she never second guessed him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knew exactly what kind of person Petunia Evans was, because as popular as Lily Evans had been during her school years, she hadn’t had many truly close friends. She had found Lily in a corridor one night with tears streaming down her cheeks as she made her prefect rounds and after that it was like a dam had opened. Lily had come to her often, after that night. Within the confines of Minerva’s office, their relationship had morphed from teacher and student to something resembling friends, or as close to friends as a teacher and a student could get. Lily had confided in her a great deal about her family and Petunia in particular, and from Lily’s stories and having met the woman herself, Minerva knew. She knew that Petunia hated magical people, but she’d thought, she’d let herself believe that even Petunia wouldn’t have been able to bring herself to hate an innocent child, much less her own niece.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Minerva had been wrong. The result of her misjudgement was written all over Hariel’s body, from the stunted growth, to the visible ribs, to the lack of appetite, to the way she flinched away from sudden movement and loud sounds, to the way her face clears and becomes blank as Minerva tells her how her parents were killed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d known what kind of person Petunia Evans had become and Hariel Potter had paid the price. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally the girl emerges from Ollivanders, her new wand clutched tightly as though if she’d loosened her grip, it’d disappear. Minerva watches as she stows it away in her bag carefully, almost reverently, and she knows that as much as she’s seen and done so far today, Hariel hadn’t really believed it was true up until the moment that she held that wand and it chose her to be its wielder. Hariel relatches her pack and turns to face Minerva with a blinding grin and she knows that this girl will approach magic and will approach this world and accept all that it has to offer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s ‘commonly known’ that Harri Potter will be a Gryffindor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Minerva knows that this girl, little Hariel, has so much bravery in her heart. But Minerva will drop transfiguration to teach divination if Hariel doesn't go to Slytherin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As they leave Diagon Alley to head back to Surrey, appearing on the corner of Privet Drive, Minerva watches out of the corner of her eye as Hariel visibly retreats back into herself, body stiffening and emotional shields slamming into place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hariel’s face and body language is blank and tame by the time they turn up the sidewalk towards Number 4, a drastic difference from the blindingly bright, grinning child from only minutes before. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pulls Hariel to a stop just short of the front door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Miss Potter…” Minerva hesitates as she sees even more walls rise before her eyes, Hariel holding herself stiff and still and blank. “If there’s anything you ever need to talk about, please come to me. No matter your house, no matter your age. You can always come to me if you need anything, even if you only need someone to listen. Do you understand?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Minerva watches, almost desperately, as some of the stone in Hariel’s face drops to show her mild confusion, before comprehension flits across her face, there and gone. She nods and Minerva barely catches herself from sagging in relief. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Minerva will fix this. She’ll right her wrongs. She’ll be there for Hariel now, as she hadn’t been before.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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